Englewood Mayor Joins Columbia Law Faculty

Michael Wildes, the mayor of Englewood, NJ; lawyer; and law professor will be joining Columbia Law School this fall to teach a course in Business Immigration, Visas, Workforce, and Compliance Law.  This is in addition to his role as adjunct professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which he has held for the last fifteen years.

Wildes has spent nearly forty years at the forefront of immigration law as managing partner of Wildes & Weinberg, P.C., one of the oldest and most distinguished immigration law firms, which was founded by his father Leon in 1960.  The latter’s representation of former Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped shape modern immigration law.

The younger Wildes graduated from Cardozo in 1989, where he also met his wife.  His father taught there for thirty-three years and taught his son and daughter-in-law.  Wildes has taught two of his own sons at Cardozo, and one of them has joined the family firm.

Wildes’ clients have included Fortune 500 executives, celebrities, Nobel Prize winners, and heads of state; altogether thousands of immigrants who have come to these shores seeking the American Dream.

Wildes has a long career in public service.  He was a federal prosecutor from 1989-93 in the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.  He testified before Congress in 1999 regarding anti-terrorism immigration legislation and has been a legal analyst for national and international media including Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN.  Former President Ronald Reagen appointed him to the District Appeals Board of the Selective Service System for the State of New York, where he served for twenty years.  He is the Immigration Council for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and for Yeshiva University.  He has been named a Super Lawyer for every year of the past decade.

This is his fifth term as mayor of Englewood.

Wildes has written two books: Safe Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door (2018); and From Origin to Opportunity: Unlocking U.S. Immigration Law to be released this fall.  Both were published by the American Bar Association.

Wildes has been a frequent guest lecturer and panelist at distinguished academia forms.  He provides his student with a hands-on perspective and an appreciation of the evolution of immigration law., ultimately hoping his students have the legal knowledge, historical understanding, and practical skills to take their places in the ranks of tomorrow’s immigration law.